For me science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance.

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.

A toothache or a violent passion is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes its character its importance or insignificance.

I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.

We are biological creatures. We are born we live we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear we find courage in the face of helplessness insignificance and uncertainty.